Interview with Simon Spurr

“There’s still a certain civility to menswear. Whereas women’s collections so often become enveloped in a front-row frenzy, a paparazzi free-for-all, and full-tilt after-party mania, the showing and selling of men’s clothes remains a much more staid, methodical affair. And that’s just the way Simon Spurr, the English-born, New York–based menswear designer, likes it. Formally trained at Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Yves Saint Laurent before launching his own label, Spurr, in 2006, the 35-year-old designer is one of the driving forces behind American menswear’s return to simple, well-tailored fashion.”

BLASBERG: Before you started your own line, you worked for a handful of menswear masters, like Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Hedi Slimane during his tenure at Yves Saint Laurent. What did you learn at those places?

SPURR: I learned something distinctive from each one. From Hedi, I learned to disregard trends and focus on my own sense of proportion and color. At Calvin, it was this purist, modern, less-is-more, take-stuff-off idea—Calvin wanted a simple backbone and not much else. And then from Ralph,
I started to understand what it meant to build a brand. There were times when I was working there that it seemed so repetitive. At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening. But when I stepped out of it, I realized what he was doing was achieving a signature look and reiterating that. That’s why when you think about a polo shirt you think about Ralph—he owns that garment.